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Mutual passion for sports brought couple together

By Magdalena WegrzynLongmont Times-Call

Posted:
02/18/2013 02:53:48 PM MST

Updated:
02/18/2013 04:55:33 PM MST

Lisa and Jack Truesdale, who will celebrate 19 years of marriage this May, have built a relationship on their mutual passion for sports. They are pictured in their Longmont home on Monday, Feb. 11.
(Greg Lindstrom/Times-Call)

LONGMONT -- Jack Truesdale knew that Lisa was "the one" when she explained a double switch in baseball.

"I found her attractive. She was nice, and she knew what a double switch was. I was like, 'You're probably not gonna find another combination like this,'" he said.

The ah-ha moment came before the couple even started dating. They were listening in the car to a baseball game on the radio when Lisa casually mentioned that the team must have made a double switch -- a player substitution that puts the pitcher in a lower batting order.

That was it. Jack, a sports nut, had found a woman who not only shared his passion, but she also understood the rules.

End of story, right? Except that Lisa was in a five-year relationship with another man.

So she and Jack stayed friends. Both worked at greeting card company Blue Mountain Arts in Boulder and played on the same company softball team and bowling league.

Jack tried to avoid discussing Lisa's boyfriend, but it came up.

"He'd say, 'Are you sure we're where you want to be?'" Lisa recalled.

She wasn't. Lisa and her boyfriend broke up, she moved out on Aug. 7, 1992, and she and Jack began dating shortly after.

The following year on Aug. 7 -- a day the couple dubbed "Lisa Independence Day" -- Jack proposed.

"He proposed at 7 in the morning because we had a softball game," Lisa said.

The couple, who will mark 19 years together this May, have two teenage daughters, both of whom share their parent's passion for sports.

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The eldest couple's eldest daughter, Hannah, 17, plays on Skyline High School's varsity soccer and is committed to play soccer at Grinnell College in Iowa. Skyline High freshman Julia, 15, plays junior varsity basketball and plans to play soccer this spring.

Their parents rarely miss a game.

"We love it. If we're going to watch sports, why not watch our own kids?" said Lisa, 50, who opted to work at home as a freelance writer, in part, to drive her daughters to soccer practice and games.

And when Jack, 54, can't make a game -- his job as sales manager at Blue Mountain Arts keeps him on the road for about three months out of the year -- Lisa sends him text message updates.

After Hannah goes to college, they have plans to drive to Iowa for weekend home games.

They joke about all the free time they'll have when their youngest daughter goes off to college, leaving behind an empty nest. Maybe there will be grandchildren by then, Jack hints, prompting Lisa to immediately envision her husband coaching youth soccer.

"Oh God," Hannah said, covering her face with her hands.

This year, for Valentine's Day, Jack bought his wife something she called "way better than flowers or chocolate:" tickets to the sold-out University of Colorado vs. University of Arizona basketball game Thursday evening.

"I think when you find the person you're going to spend the rest of your life with, you can be yourself and you don't have to pretend to be somebody else," Jack said.

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